70 local jobs at risk at Specsavers

Bosses at the island's biggest private employer said the potential redundancies will affect staff at all levels of seniority and span all business support functions.

A further 380 back office jobs are at risk in the UK, although staff employed within the 900 stores there are not affected by the announcement.

In a statement the chief executive officer John Perkins said it had been a heartbreaking decision.

'Discussing potential redundancies on this scale is the toughest step we’ve ever had to consider. My heart goes out to each and every one of our colleagues who could lose their jobs.

‘We’ve done everything we possibly could to avoid this situation, including implementing salary cuts and the introduction of part-time working arrangements.

‘Like many other companies, the downturn in business that we have experienced has been dramatic and, coupled with a challenging outlook for the economy, we have had no option but to stop many of our major programmes, halt significant capital investment initiatives and carry out an exercise to streamline our organisational structure.

‘Moving forward, our unwavering focus is on rebuilding the business to protect remaining jobs here in Guernsey and the interests of our joint venture partners and their store teams – giving them the opportunity to grow and thrive as they continue to best-serve our customers in the UK and around the world.'

Earlier this year around 570 people were employed by Specsavers, which has its global headquarters at La Villaize.

The crisis has had a huge impact on the business because stores across the world have either been closed or only open for essential and urgent care.

At the beginning of April the company warned that around 20 jobs would probably be shed locally as it battled the difficult trading conditions.

A month and a half later the picture is clearly much worse, with now 70 support office jobs regarded to be at risk.